


Sorry for Now

by BabaTunji



Series: be mine [1]
Category: Black Panther (2018), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cousin Incest, Hurt/Comfort, King Killmonger, M/M, Relationship Reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 10:27:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29417106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BabaTunji/pseuds/BabaTunji
Summary: Prompt: How do you all think T'Challa's family will react to the reveal of their relationship?
Relationships: Erik Killmonger/T'Challa
Series: be mine [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2161023
Comments: 13
Kudos: 37





	Sorry for Now

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prompt from Yen way back when on the Discord.

“I surrender to the power of your pencil

My adventure, do your love, it's gonna end soon

So remember, send the mob into the temple

My protector, perceives per say

I never meant to love you

I never meant to make you feel the same as me

I never meant to love you

(And now that I know, knew that I knew better)

But you should know, know that I will be ready

When you call your vultures, yeah

(Ay! Ay! Ay!)” - Vultures by Lido

-

At 10:37 on a regular morning, Erik’s notifications start to go crazy. He’s on his way to his office and annoyed enough to check what was happening to make so many people message him at once. Later, he will remember how the words floated up into his vision, how the live footage refused to make sense.

_ “Bomb Explosion! Building collapse in Soweto!” _

Soweto was currently undergoing a regime change, which had so far been peaceful. There was no warning or reason for this sort of attack, not according to all the reports he’s signed off weeks before this. 

That’s where T’Challa is.

He starts running before he’s even aware he’s moving, flying through his other notifications. His eyes rest a second too long on a message from Shuri, it’s a voice note, co-ordinates. He saves that and moves on to the next. When he enters the admin building it’s obvious everyone is aware of what just happened. 

A Dora Milaje intercepts him with a message from the general, someone from the Division steps into his shadow—every eye in the building it feels like is on him. He gives orders without hearing himself, forces himself to delegate what he can and makes it clear he would be leaving on a Talon Jet at the same time as the rescue team. 

“The rescue team and paramedics have been deployed.” Okoye finds him in his office minutes later. Erik is organizing his kit when she does and his hands stray on a knife. Habit from years before coming back in the moment, the edge grounding him.

“Where’s my detail, they should have been ready with the paramedics.” He’s sliding his kit closed and hefting it up as he speaks.

“Waiting for you, my king.” Her use of the honorific has him looking up. Hard eyes and a stern upper lip greets him. He doesn’t respond just strides out the door, knowing she would follow. 

He’s about to board, feet practically flying on the takeoff area when someone shouts his name. He turns to see a familiar uniform standing on a platform that overlooked the hanger. He ignores the figure, continuing his journey to the Talon Jet. She screams his name again but he doesn’t turn. 

He isn’t taking her with him, she could scream all she wants after he recovered her brother. 

-

-

-

Shuri can’t breathe, every time she closes her eyes all she can see is smoke from a collapsed building, fumes, and gasses in the air. All she can think about is her brother was now somewhere in all of that, possibly even dead. 

She has her displays showing her every view possible from all manner of electronics in the area and the closest satellites. She is listening to radios and the scanners, praying, and hoping desperately for her brother to be found. 

She knew she wouldn’t be of any use on the ground, there were already too many people, the locals as well as neighboring cities relief workers. And then there was the veritable army Wakanda had just released in to converge on Soweto. 

Yet it’s not enough, nothing would be enough if they couldn’t find T’Challa if they couldn’t save him.

The door to the office she’s holed up in clicks open and someone steps inside. Shuri is opening her mouth to bark at them to leave when she sees just who’s stepped in. Her mother, still in her sleepwear stares back—her eyes, glassy and opaque move Shuri from her stupor.

Shuri abandons the workstation to fly into her mother’s arms. The two grip each other tightly, Shuri’s face cradled in her mother’s shoulder. The moment reminds her very unkindly of the last time she’d felt this level of desperation and fear. She hadn’t been able to do anything then either.

At her workstation rescue and medics issue orders in Xhosa and Zulu, bodies are being pulled up from under the rubble and other sounds add to the cacophony of emergency. Together with her mother she waits. 

-

-

-

The scene on the ground is chaotic. Erik has no patience for it, shifting through names and IDs till he could find a leader in the mess. His detail spreads out around him, red statues in a sea of smoke and casualties. A bomb squad is already on the scene but the team lead is unavailable for questioning. The local paramedics are up to their ears in bodies, Wakanda’s paramedics were waiting for instruction. After a confusing back and forth with an old man who spoke better Afrikaans than English, Erik gives the okay for their paramedics to join in and finally finds the directing agent for their excavation efforts. 

Three buildings collapsed and from the breadth of destruction there had been more than one bomb. Piece by piece he, Okoye and the rest of his detail pick apart the facts. All around them machines and people work through the rubble. Every few minutes more people were pulled up from under, on one occasion residue from a bomb almost took out a paramedic. What seems like every 10 minutes another aircrafts flies in with supplies, they get radio or calls from foreign allies and neighbors asking if they need help. He keeps having to say no, they don’t need more help and refuse any further details. At this point it’s maybe unnecessary. The rest of the world had to have some suspicions as to why Wakanda’s king and a huge relief effort all fell on Soweto. 

The news hadn’t mentioned a Wakandan prince.

The noise from his surroundings has long faded for crystal clarity as Erik goes through names, faces from everyone who had been identified prior to the explosion. They had a mole—someone had come looking for trouble—someone had known to come on this day, set a trap for a Wakandan ambassador.

In the absence of a body he goes hunting. 

-

-

-

They find T’Challa close to sunset. Shuri has been counting the hours, heart sinking lower every time they uncovered someone alive and it wasn’t him, chest tightening at the death toll and for every body they couldn’t identify. Once Wakandan paramedics were on the ground she had crystal clear footage of the wreckage—listened almost exclusively to their channels and reports. 

T’Challa’s kimoyo beads are beeping as loud as they can, forced into emergency mode when they uncover his body, reporting to anyone that would listen about reduced oxygen levels, lacerations on the chest and back, warning of heart failure and carbon intake levels. Shuri listens to the automated messages from her brother’s kimoyo beads and sobs. 

The paramedics only have to connect their diagnostics to his kimoyo beads to begin the emergency resuscitation, and as long as T’Challa held on till they placed him stasis he would be okay. Besides her in the office room, her mother gives watery thanks to Bast and Shuri joins her. But her eyes never leave the live footage, it’s why she catches something she might have otherwise missed. 

N’Jadaka is standing right by T’Challa’s side when the paramedics are resuscitating him, and when T’Challa takes his first choked, confused breath. 

Shuri watches N’Jadaka lean into T’Challa’s side and watches the relief that flows over her brother’s features at whatever N’Jadaka says right before he’s sedated. 

The interaction turns Shuri’s stomach. 

-

-

-

T’Challa has been sleeping for hours. Ramonda watches his face from where she’s camped ever since the medics allowed her into the room and gives silent thanks. Having lost a husband to sudden catastrophe she doesn’t think she could stomach losing a son as well. On a bedside table not too far from her seat, her son’s kimoyo beads light up intermittently. He hadn’t been wearing them when the bomb exploded—standard procedure for Wakandans outside of the country had them place such distinctive technology such as their kimoyo beads in safety pods. In the end it almost killed him. If he had his beads activated then they would have found him faster they would have… Ramonda struggles to cast the dark thoughts aside. 

Something about the repetition of the lights on T’Challa’s kimoyo beads catches her attention. Reminding her of something she witnessed a month prior but dismissed as simple happenstance. She had been visiting the administration building and ran into T’Challa fresh from a meeting. She remembers how the meeting room had been empty but for T’Challa and N’Jadaka. She, waiting for T’Challa to finish using the room’s workstation when his beads, discarded on a nearby table flashed a particular purple and gold pattern. Seconds later, N’Jadaka’s beads flashed the same pattern as well. It was only a few seconds but she remembered it, and it hadn’t struck her as odd then. Such a simple event but now… she watches her son’s kimoyo beads flash that same purple and gold pattern again and again and again. Unmistakable this time, the beads were at rest in standby mode but displaying a syncing pattern. 

A pattern that N’Jadaka’s kimoyo beads wherever he was would be repeating. 

Why did her son have his kimoyo beads linked to N’Jadaka’s?

_

_

_

Finding N’Jadaka is easy once he’s back in the capital, getting access to his war room is only a little harder. Shuri had stood by and let the professionals find and rescue her brother but she’s not standing by now. She wanted answers, she also wanted to gut whoever was responsible for those bombs. When she arrives her presence garners some looks from the Dora on duty and one or two of the Division lackeys perched at displays around the room but that’s all. N’Jadaka doesn’t even look her way, arms splayed to control the numerous displays in front of him, occasionally giving orders through a headset. Okoye doesn’t pause her briefing. Shuri takes that as a sign and sits in an unoccupied space while signing into an unused workstation.

“—The Al-Gqoba have been accounted for, as have their parent groups. We expect headcounts within the hour. The –“ Okoye goes item by item through Wakanda’s prominent threat list, those who have been accounted for or marked off are given to a specific squad to investigate while the rest focus their attentions on combing all manner of records for clues as to who else might have been behind the bombings. Shuri scrolls through names, maps, messages, and all manner of correspondence. Listens in and out of calls and recordings, at some point she looks up to find N’Jadaka looking her way and freezes. Then she mentally armors up before standing up from her workstation to march towards his desk.

“I saw you.” Shuri speaks when N’Jadaka won't, her voice is low but her tone is direct. From where she stands, she has a better view of one of N’Jadaka’s displays where an agent is now interrogating a suspect. The footage chills her but she feels little compunction. Her brother almost died yesterday. 

“…and so?” N’Jadaka’s voice is husky as if he’s been shouting for hours.

N’Jadaka doesn’t deflect or deny it. It momentarily stumps Shuri but only for a moment.

“My brother is a good man; he deserves someone better.” Maybe the Nakia ship had sailed years ago but it didn’t mean T’Challa had to settle. She no longer worries Erik might hurt her, not for speaking the truth. 

“Your brother is a grown man.” N’Jadaka doesn’t sound offended at all.

“You are always taking advantage of him, how is this different?” When N’Jadaka newly ascended, T’Challa had been the one to smooth things out and stop a civil war. When N’Jadaka started his terrible ‘intervention’ nonsense, T’Challa was the one to make sense of it and not have them all embroiled in a world war. When N’Jadaka pissed of the Jabari almost to the point of no return, it was T’Challa who did damage control—

“He likes my d—” N’Jadaka starts to say something that’s obviously foul when a few seats away an agent stands to his feet waving a hand to the General. 

Who is already making her way over to review the footage he had found. Besides him others are crowding or if they were smart and not addled from the lack of sleep, connecting to his display to see the same footage. N’Jadaka is amongst the smart ones. Shuri and N’Jadaka watch the footage together. To Shuri it’s nothing, just a man walking into a convenience store after getting out of a beat-up car. To N’Jadaka it means more and his fingers twitch as if possessed to match the plates to the growing evidence file, they’d been compiling. 

Somewhere in the room someone shouts, another person curses and Shuri watches one of the closest displays spit out names, addresses, affiliation, and all manner of information. There comes a ruckus all about the room as different agents switch gears to converge on this promising thread. Shuri’s eyes gleam watching trained analysts at work turn nonsensical pieces of data and information into tangible evidence. 

They had identified every suicide bomber and victim within hours, finding the true culprits only took a few more hours and then it was only because Wakanda had been too busy ensuring there wouldn’t be anymore bombs. Whoever these culprits were, her cousin wouldn’t let them off. They and their families along with anyone who knew them would curse the day they ever thought to harm her brother. She stands and waits for the culprits to be identified, one by one, their plan revealed, their sources found. 

When the room lulls some, she whispers: “He almost died because of you.” T’Challa wouldn’t have been in Soweto if he didn’t foolishly believe in N’Jadaka’s vision and insist in putting himself in harm’s way in the name of ‘diplomacy.’ 

N’Jadaka no longer answers. 

More hours pass and Shuri watches on the screen as the White Wolf begins countdown to take a shot. On another screen pandemonium erupts as a man is cut short mid speech by a bullet in his neck. 

Around her, the room grows quiet and they all watch the death count climb.

_

_

_

T’Challa feels weightless, the effect from the painkillers and other drugs momentarily stupefying his senses. He opens his eyes to see his mother’s concerned face, bent over, murmuring his name. Gaining control of his tongue takes precious seconds, “How many?” He means to say ‘How long’ but ‘how many’ is close enough. His mother hushes him, urging him to stay still and not struggle too much. There are bandages over newly grown and knit skin. If he concentrates too hard, a ringing can be heard in his ears. He relaxes and allows his mother’s voice to wash over him. A glance about the room for his kimoyo beads reveals they’re out of reach for him, his mother’s doing no doubt. As his mother narrates the events following the bombing and his near death, T’Challa’s heart races thinking of what N’Jadaka might be doing at that very second. There is no doubt in his mind that his cousin hadn’t found and wasn’t in the process of eliminating everyone connected to the bombing. When his mother pauses for breath he tries again to speak. 

“Give me my kimoyo beads.” The words take less effort this time but his voice is raspy and rough to hear.

“To do what?” His mother sounds exasperated.

“Call N’Jadaka.” His tongue struggles over the inflection in the man’s name.

“He is busy—making sure another bombing doesn’t happen again.” The way his mother speaks… She’s always had a distaste for her nephew by marriage but none of that usual disdain is present now.

“He goes too far.” T’Challa is struck by the irony of their switched roles. She, approving while he, disapproving. 

“And if you had died? What then?” His mother’s voice carries a shrillness that was absolutely unlike her. Revealing her real fears and worries for him to see. T’Challa knows what he would do for his family, for his sister for his mother, had they been in his place on this ill-fated excursion. He doesn’t want to imagine what N’Jadaka would—is doing for him. 

“I’m not dead.” At a time like this the old joke falls flat and his mother simply sighs, leaning in close. Their foreheads touch and T’Challa breathes with her, affirming her as much as himself. 

His mother pulls away slowly and goes to sit. T’Challa watches her progress from the bed, still eyeing his kimoyo beads.

His thoughts come to a screeching halt when she asks, “T’Challa, how long have you been seeing N’Jadaka?” 

_

_

_

Shuri doesn’t go to see T’Challa. Her mother is with him and she’s still processing the very thought of him and N’Jadaka. She goes to see W’Kabi—because if anyone knew about her brother and N’Jadaka, the Dora didn’t count—it would be him. W’Kabi sees her coming and it makes Shuri feel a little better to see the way his expression blanches. He should be worried, good! Because W’Kabi is a terrible man he pulls his daughter Siya, previously making a mess on the floor into his lap as Shuri approaches. Because Siya is a wonderful daughter she doesn’t mind cooing at her father before making eyes at Shuri in an obvious bid for sweets. Since Shuri has none, she’s quickly ignored for the teething toy W’Kabi hands her. As the toy’s lights flash, Shuri interrogates W’Kabi. 

“How long?” 

“How long what?” 

“Don’t play dumb, how long has your king been…” She struggles over the right words after eliciting ‘your king’ disgust evident, “messing around with T’Challa!” 

A beat, then two as recognition flashes on W’Kabi’s features. More insultingly, he relaxes!

“Ohhhh, mmm you know I am not sure. They were making eyes at each other when N’Jadaka first arrived so maybe—”

“NO, THEY WERE NOT!” Shuri is indignant. Her brother couldn’t stand N’Jadaka from the start, when would they be making eyes? When he was being forced to mediate between N’Jadaka’s inexperienced self and the council or when he was threatening T’Challa and her family every other word?!

“Look, maybe you didn’t notice because you were too young buuut…” W’Kabi’s tone has taken on a teasing quality she remembers and hates from the times when he and her brother would tease her as a child. 

“Answer my question when did this start? Not—” She can’t articulate even the idea of her brother and N’Jadaka having sex. Bast why did she even have a brother if he was tormenting her psyche like this? 

“Seriously? Maybe after the White Wolf incident, princess why would I ask? It’s not as if they are announcing it.” W’Kabi sounds a little annoyed now. Shuri wonders what he thought she had come here to discuss. 

“I don’t understand. T’Challa doesn’t need to entertain someone like Killmonger.” Shuri lapses into her cousin’s name outside of Wakanda’s borders to clarify her dissatisfaction with T’Challa’s choices in partner. W’Kabi just shrugs.

“T’Challa has always been strange.” 

Shuri can’t even defend her brother. First, it was Nakia and then now he was following N’Jadaka? Why couldn’t he have better taste? 

“So, is that what you wanted to talk about?” W’Kabi asks when Shuri doesn’t ask any more questions. Shuri doesn’t miss the relief he seems to feel and asks, “What did you think I wanted to talk about?”

“Oh, nothing. You looked very upset so I assumed something bad had happened.” W’Kabi’s wry response reminds Shuri her brother had almost died recently and she starts to feel a little more contrite.

W’Kabi doesn’t chastise her for scaring him and Shuri doesn’t stay much longer. 

Siya’s pitiful glances were getting to her. Next time she visited she would definitely have sweets.

_

_

_

T’Challa is supposed to be released today. Shuri and his mother are present while the medics do their final checks before discharging him. After they give the all clear and it's just the three of them in the room, the air turns tense. His mother wanted him to come stay in her wing and ‘recover.’ T’Challa wanted to go home, Shuri wanted to follow him wherever he ended up. None of them gets their wish because the door slides open and N’Jadaka appears to end the discussion. T’Challa watches as N’Jadaka nods to both women present before rounding on the home-care kit, T’Challa and his mother had been bickering over. Kit in hand, N’Jadaka motions.

“Ready to go?”

Coming after a swiftly de-escalating conversation with his mother, N’Jadaka’s directness is almost scathing. 

“Go where?” His mother and Shuri ask in unison and T’Challa’s face starts to heat. Honestly of all the times for the two of them to catch on, “I’m going home.”

“No. You’re not.” N’Jadaka’s tone matches T’Challa’s word for word and the two face off. N’Jadaka in his uniform, T’Challa in pajamas. 

N’Jadaka breaks first. “Fine, but don’t bitch to me about the shower. I told you to move in last month.” Then he’s turning around to leave as if everything was fine. As if he hadn’t just conceded to T’Challa’s wishes in front of T’Challa’s family. As if he hadn’t just admitted to asking T’Challa to ‘move in’ with him. If T’Challa is abashed, his mother and sister are dumbstruck. Looking from N’Jadaka’s receding figure and back to T’Challa now standing. 

“What’s wrong with your shower T’Challa?” Shuri asks after finding her words again. 

T’Challa shakes his head. “Nothing, I… Why don’t we talk after I’m a little more settled in hmm? I know you two must have concerns.”

“T’Challa, is N’Jadaka living with you?” His mother sounds consternated and T’Challa just sighs. 

“No, he’s being overbearing.” Like the two of them had just been. 

“But he mentioned moving.” Shuri isn’t put off by the change in topics.

“I haven’t decided yet.” More likely his battle with his community standard bathroom would decide it for him.

“Well, If he will be taking care of you while you recover.” His mother seems to find her bearing. “Then I’m confident you'll be fine.” 

“What does that mean?” T’Challa isn’t so dumb as to think his mother suddenly accepted their relationship, more like she trusted N’Jadaka’s implacability when it came to following medic orders more than his own.

“It means you should go before N'Jadaka comes to get you.” His mother responds with a smug smile. T’Challa decides to leave before his sister inquires more into the state of his bathroom. 

_

_

_

T’Challa is singing, the tune sounds vaguely familiar to Erik’s ears. Something Shuri introduced him to no doubt. They’re both in the kitchen, Erik cooking while T’Challa rinsed vegetables. Normally there would be a display up showing local and global news but tonight it’s turned off. They’re home, in T’Challa’s modest apartment which he’d insisted on getting even though being a Panther Tribe prince and Erik’s most favored advisor would mean he got his own wing if he just asked. But that’s neither here nor there. This is the first time they’ve been fully alone in days and it feels good. T’Challa is home and Erik is grateful. He doesn’t care if the world knows about them, doesn’t care that he doesn’t deserve this happiness.

“Did you move the blender?” T’Challa asks and Erik looks up from the cutting board. 

“No, where did you see it last?” If they were at Erik’s place he wouldn’t be asking. 

“I’m not sure, maybe… when last did we use it?” T’Challa asks apologetically, probably realizing the last time he’d come home and cooked using the appliance. Yeah, Erik’s place was nicer. 

“I’ll look for it.” He finishes cutting the meat and starts rifling through cupboards.

Eventually they put something together that’s not too bad from the dwindling supplies in T’Challa’s fridge. Erik watches T’Challa eat and T’Challa listens to him talk. They don’t bring up the incident, they don’t talk about what Erik said that evening. 

The ritual of being together is enough. 

_

_

_

N’Jadaka won’t touch him. T’Challa noticed it back in the hospital and then at home. The lack of contact even in passing is very noticeable. It’s not till they’ve climbed into bed and the lights are off that he feels brave enough to ask. “What’s wrong?” The bed is big enough for two tall men but only just barely. Usually T’Challa had to kick N’Jadaka’s furnace-like body off his own, not pull it closer. 

N’Jadaka doesn’t answer and in the dark T’Challa can see his gaze is to the ceiling. T’Challa tries again, “I’m here.”

He can’t quantify the distress everyone must have felt when the news of the bombings first came. Can’t decide if the response is justified. His life shouldn’t be worth so much. 

“I’m not clearing anymore of your trips outside of the country.” N’Jadaka says as if his words were an appropriate response. 

T’Challa’s first reaction is anger, hot and visceral. It smoothes into understanding and then stubbornness. 

“I’ll run off to the Division and never talk to you again.” 

“Fine.” N’Jadaka sounds resigned and T’Challa’s face cracks. 

“Would you really let me be?” 

“No. The Division knows better than to piss me off.” T’Challa rolls a bit closer.

“Then I’ll join the priesthood.”

“Zuri will bring you back himself.” Erik is still looking at the ceiling.

“I’ll ex-communicate to the Jabari. E’Nena said I would make a wonderful addition.” He scooches a little more.

“M’Baku’s daughter doesn’t want me to punt her ass down Challenge Falls again.” 

“I’ll—”

N'Jadaka turns to face him. “I couldn’t breathe when I saw the news. I couldn’t breathe.”

T’Challa doesn’t respond, mirth gone. “—I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t put me in this position again, T’Challa.” He sounds on the verge of tears. T’Challa’s eyes are a little watery themselves.

“You yourself can’t promise me that, how can you expect that from me?” T’Challa refuses to stay idle, to become a figurehead estranged from the world.

“Because you’re you. T’Challa if I die, life continues. If you die…” N’Jadaka coughs, sits up. “Then I’m not sure what the fuck will happen. I just know I’m going to lose it and nothing else will matter.” 

As far as love declarations go, this is perhaps the worst T’Challa has ever received. 

“If you die, Wakanda will collapse. If I die, you will collapse, am I understanding this right?” T’Challa just wants to make sure N’Jadaka is hearing what he’s saying.

“No. Wakanda will be fucking fine if I kick the bucket.” 

“I disagree.” 

“You’re being facetious.” 

“No, I’m being factual. Unless you know someone else who can keep our five tribes together and Wakanda’s enemies in check?”

“You.” 

T’Challa laughs. N’Jadaka glowers. 

“It’s a team effort. No one is dying.” 

“Yet.” 

“No one is dying.” As he speaks, he leans in the final distance to encircle N’Jadaka’s waist in a hug.

“You have to let me go first.” N’Jadaka whispers eventually. 

T’Challa sighs. 

N’Jadaka repeats again. “You have to let me go first. You can’t die before me.”

“No promises.” T’Challa grips a little tighter. 

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Valentines <3


End file.
